Horizon Lines
by sparou
Summary: You don't realize you're going to lose your balance until, suddenly, you do. Narusasu. Twelve year old boys being twelve year old boys, and Sasuke being--Sasuke.


So, this is how the story goes.

You don't like the sky. You've never liked the sky. It's a big blue waste of space, you'd say, if anyone asked. No good for anything except distracting people from life in the real world, where pretty soft things like fluffy clouds and freedom don't exist. And you'd believe that, too.

Even though. That's not really why.

But nobody asks, anyway.

-

Sakura thinks she knows what love is. Everyone thinks you don't.

It's ridiculous, how little people understand.

Love is your mother's dark eyes in a street-side puddle at night. Love is a gust of storm-wind that smells like the incense your father liked to burn. Love is the scar you have on your left foot, thick across the heel and thinner along the arch, from a swimming accident when you were four, your father's strong, safe arms pulling you up and your mother's distant cries and the cool dark green silence underwater so peaceful, so peaceful.

Love is waking in the middle of the night with the hollow, absolute certainty that some day you're going to kill.

-

His eyes are blue and you hate him.

It's simple.

Everything in life is simple, really, if you're just smart enough to see things for what they are.

You carefully don't think, _blue like the sky_. And god knows he's not pretty or soft at all, so really, it's a stupid idea.

-

You could say that they're opposites. Love and the sky, that is. Love is real and ugly, stained red with blood to the core. Love doesn't pretend to be pretty or pure. Love doesn't lie about the way things really are. Love just stays wordless in your chest below everything, on the darkest nights and the grittiest days--hot, throbbing, terrible, always.

Always. Not like the cheerful sky, the innocent sky, the sky that turns its back when the sun leaves.

Always. Love doesn't turn away.

-

You could say that you're opposites, you and him.

And you'd believe that, too.

-

_Thunk._

One.

_Thunk._

Two.

_Thunk._

Three.

_Thunk._

F—"dobe."

"How many times do I need to tell you not to call me that, asshole?" he asks, scowling as he steps out from behind a tree.

You don't answer. _When you stop deserving it_ is too obvious for words.

So of course, like an idiot, he plants himself right between you and your kunai target and glares like you owe him something.

"I mean it! Why do you always call me that, huh? Why do you have to go around acting so--so much better than everyone else?"

Idiot. "You isn't everyone. Don't confuse yourself."

"Shut up!" He grits his teeth. "You _do_ do it to everyone. You think you're better. And everyone buys right into it, too. I don't get it at all!"

His eyes flash simple, clear-passionate blue in the afternoon sun, and he's right. He doesn't understand anything whatsoever.

A memory of red blood slowly spreading on tatami slides behind your eyes.

_Better?_ That doesn't even begin to define the difference between you and the rest of the world.

He's still staring like he expects every mystery in life to be explainable in small words. You shove the throwing kunai back into your pouch and turn on your heel.

"If you don't get it now, dobe, you never will."

You can taste it already. Five minutes from now, you will lock the door to your tiny apartment, dig your nails into your elbows, and imagine the warmth of your brother's blood on your hands until you can forget that you wish he did.

Then there's a sudden scuffle of gravel behind you and--rough, damp palm tight around your arm, jerking you back from even that refuge, and oh, you _hate_ him.

He's growling something petulant about not answering his question. You could care less.

Grasping the hand half clenched in your tee-shirt sleeve, you jerk it off and shove it away with a sweetly, vindictively bruising twist.

It's somewhat surprising when he punches you back. But not surprising enough not to dodge it. And if he thinks he can take a swing at you like that and get away with it, well...

It feels good to whirl with a low kick already in motion, and watch him barely dodge back. The satisfying startlement in those blue eyes, for once.

You smirk and milk the advantage. Right. Left. Uppercut.

You're winning (of course) until he trips and you raise back a foot to stomp him right in the gut. From this position, for the first time since you'd begun, you get a good look at his face, and.

His expression isn't startled anymore, or uneasy that you're not pulling your punches (because this is the real world, dammit, it's bloody and cruel and you're sick of everybody acting like it isn't), or even fucking _afraid_ of the blow that's about to land.

He's. Smiling.

Panting. Angry. Smiling.

You don't realize you're going to lose your balance until, suddenly, you do.

Worse, in a rare bout of uncanny perceptivity, he notices.

You're cut off at the knees and on the ground beneath him before you can even register _no fucking way._

Close up he smells like fresh sweat and old dirt and your mind is still stumbling to catch up with all of this, the absolutely new way the world is tilting, because this isn't--this isn't what you'd--

And then.

"It's not like you to slip up," he growls. Grinning so wide you can see his canines at the edges: two clean white piercing bits of sudden truth. "Am I too good for you, scaredy-cat?"

Because the thing is.

"No," you say with absolute certainty, "you aren't."

Your smile, when you twist out from under him and sock him in the gut, feels more real than anything has in years.

It will occur to you, later, digging out the old Team 7 photo you've been meaning to frame for months now. It's possible. Just possible.

That love and the sky may not be opposites, after all.


End file.
